MIND GAMES

And the minds of the players in Lindsborg on Friday and Saturday were getting a workout — a game lasts as long as 2 hours and 15 minutes, and they play two games to a round, two rounds a day.

To make it more difficult, these players couldn’t see the board; they were legally blind.

“It’s exhausting,” said Ron Wood, who chess to 150 children in central Pennsylvania. He also works with senior citizens.

“They really go deep,” said Timur Gareyev, the chess grandmaster who set the blindfold world chess record. “It’s tough to stay consistent.”

Four blind chess players were in Lindsborg Friday and Saturday competing for the U.S. Blind Chess Championship.

Gareyev flew from Moscow to talk Thursday night about playing chess blind, as a kickoff to the tournament and flew back Saturday.

He officially lives in Lindsborg but travels the world. His mother, Anna James, is executive director of Karpov International School of Chess in Lindsborg, where the tournament was held.

Gareyev gave a talk Thursday night about playing chess blind, as a kickoff to the tournament.

This is the first year the tournament was held in Lindsborg, and the players were enthusiastic about the town. The past seven years the tournament was at an airport hotel in Pittsburgh. It’s quieter here and easier to concentrate.

It’s also the first time a grandmaster, which is the highest level achievable in the chess world, has attended.

Everyone has been so warm and welcoming, said Jessica Lauser, who attended from the San Francisco Bay area in California. This is the 155th tournament she’s attended in her chess career, only four of them for blind players.

“It takes a special kind of person to play chess,” Lauser said.

“And to travel 500 or 1,000 miles to play,” added Albert Pietrolungo, the president of the U.S. Braille Chess Association, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. He came to Kansas from Pittsburg. Before he retired, Pietrolungo was an investigator with the National Labor Relations Board.

James Thoune traveled by car from Bowling Green, Kentucky, a two-day drive. He teaches chess correspondent courses online through the Hadley Institute in Illinois. His class three months ago was almost evenly split, male and female.

Alexander Barrasso, originally from New York City, came the farthest distance. He works for the Foreign Service of the U.S. State Department in Saudi Arabia but was back in the states for work, so he was able to fit the tournament into the trip.

The players all agreed that chess is an international language.

In addition to chess, Barrasso speaks five languages.

“Chess is an addictive game in a lot of ways,” Barrasso said. “It’s a game that works your brain. We’re talking about life skills, patience. Chess helps you hone those skills.”

There are few accommodations for the blind. The chess pieces have pegs on the bottom that fit into holes in the board. Lauser, who has limited sight, has a larger board with a lot of contrast.

Blind players are allowed to touch the pieces to identify them, and they can ask the play director for the time left on the clock, unlike sighted players.

Overall, though, there aren’t many differences.

Barrasso said it’s a “great equalizer.”

“All the things we can’t do (because they can’t see), don’t matter as much,” Lauser said. “The concept is the same, the enjoyment of the sport is the same. We’re not limited.”